ot want to know it: he would treat his lack
of proof as ignorance, and act as with the innocence of ignorance! A
fellow must take for granted what was commonly believed! At last, and
the last was not long in arriving, he almost ceased to trouble himself
about it.

His father laughed at his fear of failure with Arctura, but at times
contemplated the thing as an awful possibility--not that he loved
Forgue much. The only way fathers in sight of the grave can fancy
themselves holding on to the things they must leave, is in their
children; but lord Morven had a stronger and better reason for his
unrighteousness: in a troubled, self-reproachful way, he loved the
memory of their mother, and through her cared even for Forgue more than
he knew. They were also his own as much as if he had been legally
married to her! For the relation in which they stood to society, he
cared little so long as it continued undiscovered. He enjoyed the idea
of stealing a march on society, and seeing the sons he had left at such
a disadvantage behind him, ruffling it, in spite of absurd law, with
the foolish best. From the grave he would so have his foot on the neck
of his enemy Law!--he was one of the many who can rejoice in even a
stolen victory. Nor would he ever have been the fool to let the truth
fly, except under the reaction of evil drugs, and the rush of fierce
wrath at the threatened ruin of his cherished scheme.

Arctura thenceforth avoided her cousin as much as she could--only
remembering that the house was hers, and she must not make him feel he
was not welcome to use it. They met at meals, and she tried to behave
as if nothing unpleasant had happened and things were as before he went
away.

"You are very cruel, Arctura," he said one morning he met her in the
terrace avenue.

"Cruel?" returned Arctura coldly; "I am not cruel. I would not
willingly hurt anyone."

"You hurt me much; you give me not a morsel, not a crumb of your
society!"

"Percy," said Arctura, "if you will be content to be my cousin, we
shall get on well enough; but if you are set on what cannot be--once
for all, believe me, it is of no use. You care for none of the things I
live for! I feel as if we belonged to different worlds, so little have
we in common. You may think me hard, but it is better we should
understand each other. If you imagine that, because I have the
property, you have a claim on me, be sure I will never acknowledge it.
I would a thousand times